


In His Voice I Heard Decay

by Eisenschrott



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott
Summary: A few Imperials confront the defection of General Veers' son and its consequences.
Relationships: Firmus Piett/Maximilian Veers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

General Maximilian Veers strode into the cell with his head held high. A jolt ran up his legs as he climbed down the five steps of the threshold, but it winked out before it could classify as pain. The blast-proof doors shifted shut behind him; without the external light from the corridor, the cell was but a touch darker.

He went straight for the bunk and sat down. Back against the wall, hands resting at his sides, eyes to the closed door, teeth clenched, heart racing, leaden feet in his boots, both synth and real skin hot and tingling under his trousers. The bunk was an unpadded slab of plasteel. It felt cold through his uniform; the sensation was not unpleasant, at least for one sore part of his body. Last night cycle, in order to spare himself the indignity of screeching like a castrated puffer pig on Piett’s bed, he had taken painkillers before heading to the admiral’s quarters. The effect had all but vanished by now.

Seconds trickled by in silence. Brig cells were not as soundproof as the admiral’s quarters; he should be able to hear footfalls in the corridor. Captain Ronnadam, in pure ISB spook fashion, was going to leave him marinating in a helpless wait, whatever the _strictly classified_ reason why the thought policeman and a squad of stormtroopers had barged into his office and ordered— _ordered_ , the jumped-up dirtbug—him to come to the brig.

_I act under a mandate from the Imperial Security Bureau, General._

Had the admiral been informed?

 _That is classified, I told you_.

One of the troopers flanking Ronnadam was carrying handcuffs. Veers had incinerated him with one glare through the helmet lenses. Not even the ISB captain had dared insist.

Veers’ legs were healing well, according to the MedCorps staff, but they were still shit; more plasteel than bone, wrapped up in stiff and achy regrown muscles, strung together by cyber-implants that always seemed to work effortlessly, even gracefully, on Lord Vader, while turning him into a clanker with rusty servomotors. However, his shitty legs were longer than Ronnadam’s. His physique was also fitter. So he had made it a spiteful point to lead the way to the brig and outmarch the chairborne dirtbug, who trailed a step behind between him and the troopers, and had to trot to avoid getting in their way. The last glimpse Veers had seen of him, Ronnadam’s usually pasty face was flushed. It served him right.

Along the corridors, Veers had noticed the sideways glances of passing crewmembers; he could imagine those looks turning into murmured questions, the _Executor_ ’s rumor mill revving up. He was as discreetly attentive to the grapevine as any mindful officer hiding a clandestine love affair ought to be. He could recall nothing whatsoever, in the past standard weeks, regarding himself and Piett together. And if Ronnadam had put the admiral under arrest, the sideways looks would have been wide-eyed stares. There also would have been troopers guarding the entrance to another cell, which he had not spotted in the brig corridor.

If Lord Vader had gotten to Piett…

He exhaled forcefully through his nose, the snort startling him in the quiet cell. His pounding heartrate was starting to make him feel dizzy. Pins and needles prickled his thighs, and a brand-new pain throbbed at the front of his left knee. He ran his palms up and down his upper legs in a slow massage, forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly.

Why would Lord Vader take issue with them, now of all times? He had made it clear, long ago, that he knew. And he did not care. As long as they both fulfilled their duty towards the Empire. No, it had to be something else. Something that only concerned Veers.

He frowned as he recalled the past week’s daily sitreps from the Thundering Herd company commanders. Nothing stood out of the ordinary. There had been that fistfight between a trooper corporal and a TIE bomber pilot, almost three weeks ago, with a brief follow-up of obscenely-worded graffiti on a ‘fresher wall; demotion from rank, three days under arrest and six on extra shifts had speedily concluded the matter, and the pilot had been the first offender anyway. It was not even the kind of trifle the ISB usually latched onto to construe subconscious treasonous meanings where a normal Human saw, at worst, idiocy.

His right leg shook, just a spasm without pain. Absent-mindedly, he wiggled his toes and rotated his ankle, the movement awkwardly encased in the synthleather boot.

They had gone straight to detaining the general and, as far as Veers’ knowledge extended, no one else in the Thundering Herd command staff. Perhaps, no one else _yet_ —

The joint let out a snap. Pain flared up everywhere from his hindfoot to the hip. He keeled over to grip his leg at the shin, smothering a growl behind gritted teeth. That sorry excuse for a limb decided to start spasming again, while the entire cybernetic tract of his sciatic nerve burned like a blown fuse. His knee shot up and bumped against his forehead. He tensed his arms and held the leg down—breathe in, breathe out, hazy eyes fixed on the durasteel floor—his cap slipped off and fell down there—not a word and not a cry breaking the bare-fanged lock of his mouth, a trickle of drool at the corner.

One excruciating breath at a time, the pain receded to a dull ache that encompassed his whole leg and, like a gangrenous growth, extended tendrils towards the small of his back, reawakening that most intimate pain which a slathering of bacta gel after the deed had seemingly resolved.

He scooped his cap off the floor. His hand was shaking. Pathetic. During convalescence he had allowed himself to grow unduly soft. Or maybe he was getting old. He vaulted his left leg over the bunk, kneecap still obstinately throbbing, then lifted the right with both his hands and sprawled it down on the cold plasteel. The pain pitched across the limb like water in a canteen, then settled to just below the tolerance threshold.

Veers repressed a sigh of relief as he flopped to lie flat on his back. From halfway down his calves, his feet dangled past the edge of the bunk.

Someone in the Thunderers. Who? And for what, exactly? This did not matter very much, in fact. Failure is failure, regardless of its magnitude. Could it have been Covell? Absurd. The man was loyalty made flesh, bone, and dental prosthetics. Tantor? Nevar…? Stars, no, Nevar had died on Hoth. Whoever the rotten meiloorun was, their commander had his own share of culpability. For whatever he had failed to observe, to report, to quash. Did Piett know anything?

Both his legs jerked, first the left then the right. The pins and needles taunted him to scratch until his skin peeled off. Sweat veiled his brow and the nape of his neck, the cell’s recycled air cooling it off in an chilly vice; he dabbed it with his cap.

Even, deep breaths, once more with feeling. He closed his eyes. _Pain is good. Means your legs are seriously starting to function again. Means you’re alive and aware_. In those blurry moments before the field medics unburied him from under the wreckage of Blizzard One, he had felt no pain, nothing, at all. Every time it was like the first time he got knocked arse-over-tit and in shock. Every time, the blur was a question: _Am I dead?_

Stupid shitty legs. Let them kriffing hurt like Huttfuckers and prove to the Empire what mettle General ‘Iron Max’ Veers was made of. No painkillers ever again until recovery was complete. Those wounds were the true medals he would carry from Hoth; fuck the snowflake-shaped trinket with a grey-blue ribbon that High Command had sent in for his dress uniform. Pain was sacrifice. Sacrifice cleansed him of treason.

He heard a voice outside the door. His eyes shot open.

It was muffled through the thick metal and he could not make out the words, but he had become too well acquainted with Piett’s voice, in every variation of tone, volume and inflection, to not recognize it right away.

He sat up on the bunk, ignoring the angry twinge with which he legs reacted to the sudden motion, and slapped his cap onto his head.

The door slid open and in walked the admiral, ramrod-backed, stony-faced. Before the door shut once again, Veers caught a glimpse of the stormtroopers mounting guard outside.

“Admiral,” _I am so glad you are here, you wonderful little bastard_ , “what is going on? Did someone in the Thundering Herd commit trea—”

“Pipe down and listen.” Piett lurched across the cell and stood bent over Veers, clamping both hands on his shoulders. “I am not here now. This visit is not happening.”

Veers could not help a smirk. Not happening, indeed, just like their nightly meetings in the captain’s, then the admiral’s, quarters—the last one _not having happened_ about eight standard hours ago.

Piett hissed, “Not. Happening. Understood, you berk?” His breath reeked of freshly smoked cigarette.

Veers batted his eyelids and gaped at him for a split second. Piett’s grip was hard; urging, not comforting. The look in his eyes, too, was hard, the lines of worry and weariness on his face etched deeper than usual. Veers clacked his mouth shut and nodded.

“Alright. I have little time to explain and it’s a bloody lot to take in, but…” He sighed through his nose. “Look, you’re neck-deep in poodoo. It’s because of your son—he deserted. Did one hell of a number on COMPNOR, then fled the Force knows where.”

The words, their meaning, the implications and the mental image of Zev in his lieutenant’s uniform, clenched fists and bratty scowl, all burst out after a freeze-frame heartbeat, like so many time-delay grenades. “He— _what?_ ” He sprang up to his feet, legs immediately giving way under him in a blinding, breathless surge of pain. He fell back on his arse, Piett’s hands holding him steady and still. He stared him up in the eye, squinting through the incandescent sparks that crisscrossed his vision. “Sir, this banthacrap is not amusing, so please drop it already. What in blazes happened, really?”

“It seems he orchestrated an uprising on an outer moon of the Denon system—a labor camp at the Ekmara Three mining facility. The convicts massacred the Imperial garrison and the factory managers, stole the transport ships and escaped off-world. Zevulon was the brain of their breakout. Gave them passcodes, weapons, countermanded the garrison’s distress signal until it was too late… Blasted the garrison commander in the head, personally. Ronnadam says the ISB has the holofootage.”

 _Uprising. Zev. Orchestrated. Labor camp. Blasted in the head_. The words formed on Veers’ lips, but his voice could not bring itself to spell them out. A fit of laughter, completely incongruous, bloomed and died out under Piett’s unflinching gaze. “It cannot be true. Zevulon is… is my son, he’s a good young man, loyal—”

“Don’t even say that. Do you want the ISB to think you doubt _their_ judgment?”

“And there is no labor camp on Ekmara Three!”

“Quiet, dammit.”

“My wife used to work there! She was commuting to the outer moons when that shuttle accident… I-it was just a frozen rock!”

“Well, there certainly is no labor camp _now_.” Piett cast a look over his shoulder, at the door. “You’re going to be interrogated. Not here—Ronnadam’s too small a fry for the Hero of Hoth. They will take you to the brass on Coruscant, I’m afraid.” His stern mask cracked, the light in his eyes wobbling first, in a shimmer of blinked-back tears. “I will do everything in my power to clear your name. You have my word of honor, I won’t abandon you to the lothwolves.”

“But my son—”

“I must go now.” Piett mashed his lips to Veers’, who sat there too dumbstruck to return the kiss, a warm smack of smoky bitterness on his mouth. Then Piett pulled away, wiped his face on his uniform sleeve, and darted towards the door.

“Firmus, wait—” Veers staggered to his feet, grimacing through the pain that blazed through his legs. His left knee and right ankle twitched ominously, but he managed not to trip over.

The door slid open. The stormtroopers clattered into a saluting stance.

“Admiral!”

Hands clasped behind his straight back, not a glance behind, Piett disappeared into the blue-grey light of the corridor. The door snapped shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from _The Day The World Went Away_ by Nine Inch Nails.
> 
> This fic is unbetaed and typos/mistakes may occur (please do point them out if you spot 'em), but "dirtbug" is not actually a misspelling of "dirtbag" - according to Wookieepedia and the Legends canon, ISB Internal Affairs agents refer to their investigative staff as "dirtbugs", which is exactly the level of humor I would expect from a cruel and paranoid secret police in space.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter heavily draws on the canon novel _Lost Stars_ , for no other reason that I like it and have been wanting to try writing Ciena Ree and Nash Windrider for a while. I'm not sure how obscure a piece of ancillary media it is, so here is a very short primer: Ciena is a young Imperial officer whose career spans the main OT events, hailing from a planet whose culture values oathkeeping and loyalty over anything else. She also has a strong moral compass, which does not turn out well in her workplace. Her co-protagonist in the novel and love interest, Thane, is a jaded deserter who ends up joining the Rebellion. Their chum from the academy, Nash, used to be a funny and nice lad from Alderaan; now he copes by doubling down on Imperial chauvinism.  
> The plot point referenced in this story is a part where Ciena rushes back to her homeworld as her mother is subject to trial on false charges, but cannot help her, since it would cast doubts on Imperial justice and Ciena's own loyalty. Wookieepedia has [a more extended summary of the matter](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ciena_Ree#Return_to_Jelucan).  
> Fun fact: Captain Ronnadam, the Executor's ISB spook, is also introduced in this novel.

“Weapons and astrogation controls rerouted to the pilot stations—check,” Lieutenant Nash Windrider said from the co-pilot seat of the Lambda-class shuttle. “All systems ready for takeoff.” A pause, and quieter, “Here they come.”

Lieutenant-Commander Ciena Ree looked up from the instrument panel to the viewport. The docking bay was but a secondary one among several dotting the _Executor_ ’s hull, devoid of other vehicles than the shuttle, and of people aside from a squad of Navy Troopers marching briskly towards the ship. Her eyes were drawn to the prisoner in the middle of the small black column, the only one without a helmet—or an officer’s cap. His hands were cuffed but he walked with his head high, gazing, it seemed to Ciena, right up to the viewport.

She looked back down at the instrument panel and ran another round of system checks, focusing on the readouts to push away the memories of her mother at the trial—cuffed hands, eyes always low to the ground. A general could afford to retain his pride in disgrace, to flaunt his honor even when it was impugned. Not so a poor woman of the Jelucan valleys with only a lifetime of hard work to her name.

Seconds later, footfalls thumped up the lowered ramp of the shuttle and into the passengers hold. Footfalls and the rattle of blasters.

“Commander,” a girl’s voice spoke up from the door that connected the cockpit to the passengers area. Ciena turned around on her seat and almost winced; the Navy Troopers sergeant looked even more youthful than she sounded, a petite and round-faced woman barely out of her teens, with acne and a DH-17 pistol instead of the heavier, larger E-11 blaster. “The prisoner is secured and my team is ready.”

“Very well. You may go to your station. We will inform you when we jump into hyperspace.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ciena watched the sergeant step back and press the button that sealed the cockpit door. It could have been herself three years ago, before the Death Star. Springing to duty. Free of doubts. Short.

The takeoff sequence went smoothly and quickly. The shuttle descended into the star-punctured dark vacuum and flew at jump safety distance away from the _Executor_ ’s gravitational field; even without a navigator, it took Nash less than a half minute to plot the course.

For a fleeting moment as the stars stretched into infinite blueish trails, Ciena imagined the shuttle was leaping not only out of realspace, but also out of its coterminous time. At the bright other end of the blue tunnel lay Jelucan hundreds of years into the past, jagged and clear-skied as the First Wavers discovered it, the toxic fumes of mines and ore-processing factories a far-off shadow she would die long before having to witness.

Nash spoke into the intercomm to the passengers area, “Sergeant, we are in hyperspace. ETA to Imperial Center is 6:15.”

“Copy that, sir,” answered the sergeant. “Permission to ask a question?”

Nash eyed Ciena, his face serious. She gave a brief nod and turned her gaze back to hyperspace, wishing she could plug her ears and not hear the young sergeant speak out doubts.

“Granted,” Nash said, a hard edge creeping in his tone.

Ciena also wished she could not hear Nash quell those doubts, as he inevitably would.

The sergeant hesitated a fraction of second. “Is it… normal that this hold smells of dirty socks?”

“Scheduling vehicle interior sanitation is the Navy’s job, Sergeant,” cut in a harsh, Core-accented male voice, barely stifled by distance from the intercomm and audible even across the cockpit door. “Your job, that is.”

The sergeant spluttered like a recruit on the first day of boot camp. “Silence, prisoner… sir.”

Nash turned the intercomm off and muttered, “Truly the flower of the Imperial Navy.”

Beyond the door, the buzz of voices continued, especially the general’s voice.

“She does have a point about the smell,” Ciena forced herself to joke, instinctively keeping her own voice low—an ingrained habit of staying away from the ire of a superior officer, and a close one to Lord Vader at that, even if it made no sense in the general’s current situation. “I guess stormtroopers never notice it because of the helmet filters.” She wasn’t in the mood for banter, but it had taken Nash years to pick up the shattered pieces of his good humor; after lying to him about her own feelings, the fate of his best friend, and the high treason those lies had covered up, the last thing she wanted to do was snuff out that spark in him.

It was a small relief to hear him laugh softly. “I always thought so. But to be honest, I wish the guard detail had been stormtroopers instead of, well, _our_ troopers.”

Ciena sat back on the chair, trying to shift into a marginally comfortable position. Ten nights in her old bed at home had re-accustomed her body to far too much more coziness than it was possible to get in the fleet. “ _Ours_ are trained to haul drunk officers out of cantina fights; it sounds like good enough protection.”

“It’s not about that, Ciena. You don’t have to tiptoe around it for my sake.”

That small moment of mirth between them evaporated like dew after dawn. She met his gaze, a mixture of kicked tooka and seriousness several years older than his age.

“The only people on the _Executor_ ,” said Nash, “stormtroopers idolize more than Veers are Lord Vader and that galley droid with the broken programming that handed out double portions of chow for a month. I heard,” he lowered his voice, “some buckethead’s already been caught grumbling about…” A nod at the door.

If anything, the general and his guards had gone quiet. Ciena wondered if the troopers had maced him with sedative. They sometimes did that to drunk officers. “None of us was expecting it, I suppose,” she said.

“Of course not, but the fact is, the admiral does not trust the Army to keep its head. Why else pick Navy troopers? Or have the prisoner transport leave on the sly, in the dead of night cycle, with a skeleton crew consisting of _an Alderaanian_ and the literal poster-girl of loyalty?”

Not quite. An Alderaanian, and a Jelucani who had just chosen loyalty to the Empire over loyalty to her own flesh and blood.

“It means there might be so, so many traitors in our midst. That scares me—how deep the rot can go, and you won’t even know until it’s too late. You find stupid excuses to look the other way, rationalize…” With one hand Nash tugged at the side locks of his hair, where he once wore it in an Alderaanian braid.

“You are right,” she said quietly, turning to the hyperspace. Stemming a rush of anger that roiled under her skin, making the hair on the back of her neck stand beneath the sharply ironed collar of her tunic. Anger at Nash, for being able to speak his grief out, while she had watched her mother be sentenced for a crime she had not committed and so much as telling that to her comrades—her friends—on the _Executor_ would be tantamount to betraying her oath and raising Captain Ronnadam’s suspicions. Anger at Thane, the only one who had come to keep the vigil with her and her father, and who had cast his lot with the Rebellion, honorless and dead to everyone in the galaxy but to her. Anger at herself. At her oath. At her honor-bound heart and open ears.

“Hyperspace is funny,” Nash continued, as relentless as an interrogation droid, his voice a murmur. “Sometimes I like to imagine how it would be if I could jump a few hundred years into the future. The Empire rules a galaxy at peace, brought on by the sacrifice of my homeworld and of all our friends. No Rebellion, no pirates or Hutts, no traitors left to root out. And it’s been so long since the war that nothing hurts anymore.”

A clump squeezing her throat from the inside, Ciena tore her face away from the light point at the end of the starlight tunnel. “We will not live that long.” _Mercifully_ , a thought hissed in her mind, speaking in Thane’s voice. “Focus on the present and on your duty. On what _you_ can do, _now_ , to protect the Empire from the rot.” Her hands, trembling just the slightest bit, tapped over the console instruments. All system stats were regular.

“Of course, ma’am. And… thanks.”

They both flinched at a thud from the passengers area. Muffled shouting noises followed, the general once again all too identifiable.

Ciena slammed her hands on the edge of the console and sprang to her feet. In the corner of her eye she briefly met Nash’s goggle-eyed stare as she stomped to the door.

She punched the opening button with the ball of her fist; the door slid open and the turbolaser barrage the general was unleashing hit her at full force. “—was already a captain when you were a spunk stain between your mother’s thighs!”

Sitting on the opposite seat from the shackled prisoner, the sergeant whipped her head towards the door. Her face was a wobbly-lipped, teary-eyed mess, the plea for help so open and pathetic that Ciena felt sick to her stomach. The other troopers were all staring down at their boots in silence.

“What is going on here?” snarled Ciena, striding to the center of the hold, shoulders up, hands behind her back, to face the prisoner. “You were told to keep silent.”

He was dressed in a plain uniform, without rank insignia and belt. His bound balled-up fists rested on his lap, while his right foot tapped restlessly on the floor like a rockpecker drilling nutrients from Jelucani fogstone, jiggling the binders that bolted his ankles to the seat. It was colder in the shuttle than on the _Executor_ , but a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He glowered up and down at Ciena, with the once-over of a drill sergeant scanning a greenhorn cadet for non-existent creases in their uniform. Then his hard eyes took aim at Ciena’s matching expression. “Brat,” he spat out, “who do _you_ think you are?”

“The commander of this ship,” said Ciena. The words rolled on her tongue like poison-laced ice shards. “And as such, I will not tolerate any disrespectful behavior aboard.”

“Incompetence and amateurism seem to be quite alright with you and your marines, conversely.” His large mouth twitched into a cruel grin, a jarring, almost unbearably crude contrast with the aloofness Ciena had always seen General Veers display on the _Executor_ ’s bridge. “There cannot be any disrespect when no respect was warranted in the first place.”

Behind her, Ciena heard the sergeant make a choked sound.

She took one step forward, her right arm lunged, her palm hit his face with a whip-crack noise and a hot sting under her glove. Veers’ head was rocked to the side, nearly colliding with the helmet of the trooper sitting next to him.

He blinked, shook his head, and inched back against the seat, his knee kicking up the few centimeters the restraint allowed.

“Don’t you understand your predicament?” Ciena urged him.

He snorted and regarded her with a scowl, but something of the initial defiance had dulled. His chest heaved visibly at every breath.

“It is not my calling to judge whether you are a rotten meiloorun or there is good in you, General. Neither mine, nor anyone else’s on this ship.” Ciena clasped her hands behind her back, discreetly cradling her tingling right palm with the fingertips of the left hand. “Your only duty is to trust the Empire’s justice. Which you _do_ trust, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he barked. She wished that could still be her answer, too; oaths were one thing, more unbreakable than the binders on the general’s arms and legs—but trust, and justice...

Ciena nodded. “In the meantime, you better stop making a fool of yourself in front of an officer who could be your daughter.”

His face shook for a microsecond. Then it settled back into the scowl. More sullen, more tight-lipped. His right leg kept tapping, and his left foot was beginning to twitch as well. Ciena was about to return her attention to the hapless sergeant, when Veers spoke up again, closer to his cold, formal command bridge voice, “I have a request, Commander.”

“State it.”

He tilted his head forward. The roots of his sandy-grey hair were dark with perspiration. “Unbind me. Just the ankle restraints. My legs are driving me mad.”

Ciena grit her teeth. This man’s gall! Older officers were the worst, like Admiral Ozzel or Captain Ronnadam—then she remembered he had been wounded on Hoth. Extensive damages to the lower limbs, several weeks in the medbay. While reviewing the battle data, she had seen the holorecording of that Rebel snowspeeder crashing into the cockpit of the general’s AT-AT. Jotted down a note on her datapad: _Suitable tactics for desperate fanatics_.

“Or stun me,” he pressed on through her silence, raising an eyebrow, “if you fear I have it in me to overpower your crew and hijack this shuttle.”

Shame and guilt heated her cheeks. She turned to the sergeant, who seemed to have regained her cool. “Sergeant, please, the key.”

Her hand hovered to a pouch on her utility belt, but she stopped in her tracks. “Ma’am, it is against the regulations.”

“He has nowhere to escape. At any rate, I assume full responsibility for this order.”

That seemed to convince the sergeant, who pulled the key out of the pouch and typed a code on the lock screen. The binders clicked open; Veers swung his shuddering legs free, allowing himself a quiet sigh but not a word of thanks, not even a glance at Ciena, who stepped aside to avoid getting kicked. Head down, biting his lower lip, he rubbed his cuffed hands along his thigh and over his knee.

Anger bubbled again at the pit of Ciena’s stomach. It had cost nothing to grant this man the privilege of a compassionate treatment; for her mother, who had accepted the extreme consequences of her oath just as steadfastly as a soldier going into battle, there would have been none, had Ciena not donned a headscarf covering half her face and the shabbiest civvies she could find, and slid all the credit chips she had into the hand of a mine guard during his cantina break. It had been Thane’s idea, a vexingly _Rebel_ idea—but that guard on the Imperial governor’s payroll had accepted the bribe with a smile and a whisper about feeding his elderly parents.

The sergeant followed her to the cockpit. “I have to report this incident in the ship’s log, ma’am. It’s the regulations.”

“Of course, Sergeant.” Ciena heard her tell the marines, “Watch him closely, boys,” before locking the door behind them.

Nash met her with an awed stare, leaning his beanpole frame out to the side of the seat. “This is going to go down in history,” he said. “They will tell the tale of Lieutenant-Commander Ree bitch-slapping Iron Max Veers for centuries to come.”

“And you will not tell it to anyone, Lieutenant. Especially _not_ to Lieutenant Sai.”

He made a pouting face, “Yes, ma’am,” and sank back into the seat.

The sergeant went to the comms terminal and began typing. There was more to her somber face than the expressionless mask of professionalism. Her eyes flicked to Ciena’s, held her gaze. “Rest assured, ma’am, I am also reporting my own failure to silence the prisoner. I will gladly accept my punishment. The rest of my team is not to blame. I… I gave them no order to intervene, so they did not.”

Ciena’s skin crawled; for one crazy instant she wanted to fling her arms around the sergeant and hold her tight. Instead, she had to force her calm and collected officer’s voice out of her throat. “It is understandable. None of us was expecting that the general, of all people...”

“Least of all did us, ma’am. I and four other guys in my team come from Denon. He’s been our local news hero for years—even married a woman of my own religion. I first considered enlisting because I had the daftest crush on him from the Army publicity holos.”

Both the sergeant and Ciena flinched at the snap of Nash’s voice, “Get over that sentimentalism, Sergeant. The sooner, the better.”

He was pointedly watching the hyperspace outside the viewport. Ciena recalled an evening in her quarters at the academy, browsing a teen holomag with Kendy and Jude—she was the last one left of their trio now—and Kendy pointing at the picture of Princess Leia Organa. _Ah, here we go, Nash’s celebrity crush—way too flat for my Ilohian good taste. We like curves_.

“…Yes, sir.” The sergeant finished typing the log entry, then saluted the commander and disappeared into the passengers hold.

For those few seconds while the Empire was not looking, Ciena peered at the ship’s log on the screen. One tap. The update was amended out of the record.


	3. Chapter 3

The scent of caf and a quiet bubbling noise filled the office. The power cell of the caf-maker water tank shut off with a click. The caf-maker had been a gift from his husband; a portable model, designed for outdoor usage. Only good thing that marriage had left to Colonel Freja Covell. He and the man had divorced long ago, but the caf-maker had followed Covell throughout the galaxy, surviving ground campaigns like the tough, blast-scorched veteran it was.

Standing in front of his desk, he poured half of the steaming dark brew into one of the two plastiform cups he had pilfered from the officers’ mess hall. Just then, the office door slid open and Major Tantor walked in, alone, with a datapad under his right arm.

Covell gestured at him to come closer and offered him the full cup.

“Thank you, sir. Just a moment.” From Tantor’s trousers pocket appeared a small flask with a yellowed label in a swirly script Covell couldn’t read. But he could _smell_ the outrageous percentage of alcohol by volume in the amber-colored liquid Tantor trickled into the caf.

“Do I want to know what that is?” asked Covell.

Tantor put the datapad down, next to one that Covell had left out of the neatly arranged stacks on the desk and to the folded flimsipaper reading ‘Last will’. He took the cup. “I am not sure myself, sir. I requisitioned it a while ago from a street vendor on Jedha.”

“Hells, son.” Covell poured the remaining caf into the second cup and raised it for Tantor to add the alcohol.

They clinked the full cups together and drank them up in one throat-searing gulp. The hot mixture landed like a punch at the bottom of Covell’s stomach, making his head feel light and the air in his trachea burn. Tantor coughed into a hand.

“Are you ready, Major?” Covell had often been told his voice sounded like sandpaper scrubbing grime off a walker’s armor plate, but this time it also _felt_ like that.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s go.”

Datapad in hand, they threw the empty cups into the garbage chute and left the office, making their way to Lord Vader’s quarters.

Seen from the main corridor, the bridge and its anterooms were as abuzz with activity as ever. Lord Vader was not at his usual staring-out place by the front viewport. That absence left the Navy toffs free to strut about the walkway like they owned the whole damn vac outside the viewports, with every chunk of gravity-taped matter that floated in it. The Navy toff in chief, however, was much closer; Admiral Piett was standing by the hologram pod, just a few meters ahead of the door to Lord Vader’s quarters. He spotted them as they approached; for a sleep-deprived little bastard, his sight was as sharp as a hawk-bat’s. Despite Covell’s care not to make eye contact, the admiral dismissed the uniformed hologram he was speaking with and strode to intercept them.

“General, I need you to…” Piett’s eyes trailed to the rank insignia on Covell’s tunic, then to those on Tantor’s. “A word, gentlemen.”

Kriffing hawk-bat sight. The upper left corner of Covell’s mouth, the most scarred one, gave a twitch. “Apologies, sir, but we urgently need to speak to Lord—”

“He is meditating and not to be disturbed.” His face was as bland as ever, but there was a glint in his sunken eyes that set Covell on edge. Bloody ridiculous. After Hoth, and after every-damn-thing before Hoth, he was not letting himself be intimidated by this pencil-dick squid.

“Now come with me,” said Piett, making a start towards the corridor and keeping his glare trained on them.

“We have—”

“Yessir,” Tantor cut in, and gave Covell a sideways glance.

“Yes, sir,” Covell muttered. Not for the first time, he wondered whether getting Tantor involved, instead of confronting Lord Vader alone, had been a wise move. Nevertheless, he followed his subaltern and the admiral to one of the smaller briefing rooms, several doors down the corridor. Once they were inside and the door slid shut, Piett locked it with one of his code cylinders. The room lightning flickered for a second, which Covell presumed was a security video feed deactivating.

“Now, General, Colonel, _explain_.”

Covell held the admiral’s glower without a flinch but, to his dismay, he found his own tongue stuck and his jaw welded. Piett, as General Veers had claimed, was not a complete tosser nor brain-dead, so he must’ve figured out what was going on the instant he’d seen their rank plaques. Going through a pointless charade of obvious explanations and sanctimonious outrage was an offense to Covell’s intelligence. If the admiral had sicced Ronnadam on them right away, there would have been more honor.

Tantor cleared his throat. Should’ve known better than mixing Jedhan hooch to strong caf. “Actually, sir, we respectfully refuse to continue holding those commissions. It is _Colonel_ and _Major_.”

The apple of Piett’s throat bobbed under the collar of his tunic. “This is not an act of protest, is it?” It was not a question. It was a threat: _Don’t you dare answer yes_.

To the ninth hell with it all. “We were about to submit our resignation forms to Lord Vader, sir.” Covell shoved the datapad into Piett’s hands, the push sending the scrawny Navy man a reeling half-step backward. “As you can see, it’s nothing that concerns you or the Navy.”

Without a word, Piett read through the datapad. The farther he got, the wider his eyes bulged. At any other time it would’ve amused the hell out of Covell to shock the daylights out of a stuck-up fleet toff, but now he found himself with a tingle to the back of his head, quickening pulse, and a dry mouth. All the fear he had expected to grip him in Lord Vader’s presence. He glanced at Tantor, standing next to him and clutching his datapad a bit too tight to his chest than was necessary. One look at his face and Covell knew he was feeling the same. Just further proof neither of them had the stones for stepping in General Veers’ place.

Letting out a long, hissing breath that for a nanosecond froze Covell’s blood, Piett pinched the bridge of his nose. “You reckless idiots.”

“Admiral,” tried Tantor in his most conciliatory tone, “we understand it is an unusual decision—”

Piett’s head jolted up. “Unusual? The word you are searching for is _insubordinate_ , Colonel.”

Tantor flinched, but muscled on, “It is as we pointed out in the reasons for our requests. Our present commissions are unfairly gained and we cannot hold them in good conscience. We are ready to accept any further use the Imperial Army shall find for us.”

“Shoveling spice on Kessel sounds like a very probable option, then.” Before Tantor could stammer out a reply, Piett turned to Covell. “ _General_. Do you realize what, exactly, your gallant gesture is saying out loud?”

“It says what’s written on the form, sir.”

“Spare me the clever jokes, you dirt-pounding berk!”

Covell grit his teeth, hard enough that both the few real ones he had left and the implants hurt from the pressure. Veers used to say this admiral was parsecs better than Ozzel. Shit to that. It was like the fleet had mass-produced them on Kamino, genetically bred to be high-strung and self-important pricks who browned their pants at the mere idea of getting their hands dirty with real war. Or putting honor before career.

Piett drew in and out another hissing breath, his shoulders rising and sagging. It occurred to Covell he’d never seen the man so angry. _Visibly_ , at least. “You are implying,” said Piett, back to a crackling resemblance of his usual flat tone, “that the Empire has been unfair in investigating General Veers and removing him from his post. Now, do I really have to spell out what the problem with this insinuation is? And its consequences for you?”

“We know what we wrote, sir.”

“So you are prepared to die forthwith at Lord Vader’s hand, or be arrested by the ISB, aren’t you?”

Blasted dry mouth. That vendor must have given Tantor a bottle of poison; wouldn’t have been the first time a Jedhan attempted to murder an officer with a spiked drink. Covell swallowed. “We trust Imperial justice to do what’s best. Do you, sir?”

“ _You_ are the one questioning justice, for crying out loud!”

“If we are, then as you say we’ll face the consequences. May we go now, sir?”

“Of bloody course no.”

 _Shit_. Covell didn’t swear aloud but was damn sure the admiral could read that on his face. This entire conversation was a waste of time. A waste of strength and resolve, too, like a successful attack failing to press on the enemy in retreat and losing momentum. Not that Covell was worried about himself losing his nerve, but Tantor—

“I will be very frank with you, gentlemen,” the admiral continued, waving a forefinger between them but mostly aiming at Covell. “Personally, I could not give two bantha ticks if you both dropped dead at Lord Vader’s feet.”

_The feeling’s mutual, squid._

“However, I cannot stand back and let fate run its course if your recklessness and your hero complex float Veers further up the poodoo creek.”

“But, sir,” Tantor tried to interject, in a small voice that did not befit a soldier of his seniority and grated on Covell’s ears like the creaks and whines of an AT-AT’s leg gears in need of maintenance, “we only mean to help him. The… the honor of the Imperial Army is at stake.”

“Help him, you say?” Piett grimaced as if the words tasted of tauntaun dung. “The ISB is going to interpret your self-righteous indignation as proof that Veers has allowed rot to take as much hold in his division as in his family. With that in mind, they will go even less gentle on him than they presently do. Perhaps your act of defiance will be just the last straw they needed to put him in front of a firing squad. Is _this_ your idea of help, Colonel?”

“And what is yours, Admiral?” Covell blurted out, louder and angrier than it was acceptable or wise to address a superior officer. Well, the admiral had said it already, they were being insubordinate. Pleasantries were out of the airlock anyway. “He’s been in their custody for a week already, how long are we supposed to wait? Should we abandon to the lothwolves an officer who has given everything he’s got to the Empire? And lose a damn capable commander at a time when we need functional brains behind the blasters? This is the sort of foolishness and wastage that costs us dead and defeats, sir. I’ve seen that entirely too often dirt-side, while you lot in the fleet were busy backstabbing each other over a post as bootlicker-in-chief to Grand Moff Tarkin or Lord Vader and politicking like bloody senators.”

Piett chuckled mirthlessly. “I concede this is partly true.”

Anger now smoldered hot and heavy like hyperfuel at the bottom of Covell’s stomach. Chances were that Jedhan hooch _was_ part hyperfuel. He leaned forward towards Piett, who was almost ten centimeters shorter than him. Fixed his bared too-white prosthetic teeth and ugly scarred mug onto the admiral’s doughy face, which Covell was sickly amused to see shudder for a split second. “You think we’re afraid of death? No way in the nine hells, sir. We’re going to die for the Empire, dragging as many Rebels down with us as we can. But dying—no, having the _potential_ of our death thrown away without honor and without victory, damaging the Empire on the long run and helping out its enemies? That’s just, excuse my Coruscanti, utter banthashit.”

Piett went silent and still, for a few seconds that hung as heavy as fog on Felucia. “Very touching words, General. What do you anticipate will happen once you and Colonel Tantor carry on with your plan and get yourselves summarily executed?”

“A couple marines will haul us to the morgue.”

“Correct. But, more to the point, the Thundering Herd will mutiny.”

Tantor and Covell exploded at the same time, “What in blazes—!” “How dare you—!” “They are the most loyal—” “Insult our best troops—”

Piett just stepped aside from Covell with an air of smug indifference that was damn well begging for a few hard punches, which Covell’s clenched fists itched to provide. “Colonel Tantor,” said Piett, “I know your commanding officer is conveniently unfettered; but you have a wife and a daughter, don’t you?”

Shit. Of fucking course the family pretext was going to crop up.

Tantor tensed up. Holding the datapad, the muscles of his right forearm bulged as if they were to rip the tunic sleeve open. “…I do, sir.”

Shit, encore. A tremor ran across Covell’s mouth. He could hear himself ask Tantor the same question, in a slightly different phrasing, that Piett threw at him like a live grenade, “After you die, they will foot the bill for your actions.”

The reply was just about the same. Heartbeat-long hesitations and all. “It… it is a possibility I am aware of, sir. I assume full responsibility.”

“In all likelihood, they will be questioned. You know the standard procedures.”

Of karking course Tantor knew them, and he was picturing them. Covell could tell by the glassy stare and the color draining from his face. _Sith damn you, Brenn, don’t chicken out_.

“After that, the most probable outcome is a sentence to re-education through labor, on a planet such as Kessel or Wobani,” Piett rumbled on. “All because of your betrayal.”

That one word stabbed. A fucking lightsaber to the guts. Icy and white-hot at the same time.

Tantor made a snort that shook his whole frame. “Don’t you dare call us traitors. Not us, not General Veers, and least of all our troops. We only have the greater good of the Empire at heart. And I am willing to sacrifice myself and my family for it.” Yet he had not stopped shaking.

“Suit yourself, I would say under normal circumstances. But I cannot allow your pointless sacrifice to endanger Veers even more.”

“Honor is not _pointless_ , Admiral,” Covell snarled. His dominant hand grabbed a fistful of Piett’s uniform under the collar and yanked the scrawny bastard face-to-face with Covell, at eye level, forcing him to stand on his toes while the shoulders of his tunic bunched up and a few shoddy seams on the factory-produced garment came off with a ripping sound. Piett clung to the datapad like a piss-poor excuse for a Wookiee to a piss-poor excuse for a Klorri-clan shield.

“I don’t bloody care that we die and I _know_ Veers is kriffed! The _one_ thing we’ve got left to save is our karking honor and integrity, and you—” Covell turned his fist, wrenching the fabric tighter around the squirming admiral’s neck, “you blame-shifting mynock won’t strip that away from us! Nor from the general, if you have a shred of respect for him.”

Piett stared him up with a face Covell had seen plenty of times on POWs and the civilians of Rebel-aligned worlds. A unique blend of defiance, animal fear, shell shock and hostility, shared across cultures and species, transcending physical facial features and the brain chemicals creating emotions. Hells, he’d even read that attitude on astromech droids prised out of captured X-Wings.

“Foolishness and wastage,” wheezed Piett. “Look who’s talking.”

Covell’s left fist shot up—

A comlink blared. He froze, arm bent backward in mid-air.

With a fumbling movement, Piett raised the pinging comlink to his face. “Admiral Piett,” he answered, uncannily close to his normal tone.

“Return to the bridge at once,” boomed Lord Vader’s unmistakable voice, unmistakably angry. “General Covell, I know you are there.”

The lightsaber gut feeling pierced another gaping hole. Larger.

“I want an assault regiment ready for deployment. Have your troops and vehicles gear up for heavy radiation environment.”

“Yes, my lord,” he heard himself answer on autopilot, while his rational thoughts skittered shrieking around his brain like so many mouse droids. Deployment _where_ , against what enemy? What the fuck was going on?

The comm ended with a click from the other side.

“Well, you heard His Lordship,” said Piett. “When you walked in, I was just going to tell you the _Executor_ is headed for the Tund system.”

“Tund? Kriffing hells, that planet is a microwaved dustball.”

“Most accurate. There are reports of anti-Imperial activity, perhaps involving Force users. Clearly, Lord Vader believes rooting them out is the priority now. Would you agree?”

Covell worked his jaw. Bloody thing he hated the most about his job, this knack war had for catching everyone—hapless soldiers, spineless civilians, entire armies and fleets and governments, the MedCorps that never had enough bacta and the flimsi-pushers of logistics that TaggeCo subsidiaries always arm-wrestled into accepting expensive supply contracts for barely edible rations—at the worst possible time. “Course I do, sir.”

“Well. Now let go of me and run to the Army Operations command center; your staff better hurry to analyze the terrain and plan the surface attack.”

Covell uncurled his fist; the admiral slipped off and tugged at his collar. Aside from the wrinkles on his uniform and the cap askew, he looked like nothing had just happened. “This matter’s not over yet,” Covell warned him.

Piett pressed the datapad to Covell’s chest. “But, since your lives are not yours to waste as long as you have to do your duty, it shall wait.” He didn’t let go of the thing right away, forcing Covell to pull for the hell of it. “Don’t forget to wear correct rank plaques.”

“Yes, sir.”

At last, the admiral unlocked the door and broke into a run in the corridor towards the bridge, adjusting his cap as he went. A small tear on the upper back of his tunic showed a peek of white shirt.

“So, General…” said Tantor. “Shall we go?” He looked and sounded relieved. Even if he tried to hide it.

Covell regarded him with a frown, his lip jerking. Blast these sentimental people with half their mind always far away to sweethearts, family, chums and home, sauntering straight into a trap as they followed the lure of whatever illusion—whatever distraction from loyalty to the Empire—one ascribed to any bond that wasn’t forged on the battlefield. Even Veers had been that sort of damn fool. Look at how just one son had kriffed him over. “Forget resigning, Brenn. I won’t allow you.”

Tantor blinked. Surprise, disappointment, yet more relief—who the fuck cared. “Sir?”

“Now haul your pale afterburners to Operations!” Covell hurtled into the corridor, useless datapad in one hand and comlink in the other, barking orders to the battalion commanders.


End file.
